Ted Cruz to Texas Lege: Back off dark money disclosure legislation

AUSTIN — Reacting to a Sunday San Antonio Express-News story about the increasing flow of dark money in Texas elections, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz took to Facebook Thursday to tell the Legislature to refrain from passing a bill to require politically active nonprofits to disclose donors.

The House State Affairs Committee is holding a hearing Thursday on the topic of secret campaign spending in the state, and efforts to revive dark money disclosure legislation vetoed by Gov. Rick Perry last session will be one of the main topics of discussion.

Cruz, who has argued that requiring politically active nonprofits to disclose donors could restrict free speech, wrote that the “Texas Legislature should not enact these pernicious laws at the state level.”

“Today the Texas Legislature is holding a hearing on requiring outside groups to disclose their donors to engage in political speech. That would be a disastrous policy that would unconstitutionally chill free speech.

President Obama and U.S. Senate Democrats have been trying to enact this wrongheaded law for years at the federal level. And the IRS just received 150,000 comments overwhelmingly against its proposed rules to force groups to disclose their donors.

The Texas Legislature should not enact these pernicious laws at the state level.”